


the hope which has no opposite in fear

by blackkat



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Bargaining, F/F, Fairy Tale Elements, First Kiss, KakaZabu Week 2018, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-05 01:23:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15159332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: Zabuza steels himself, breathes out. Remembers he can move, that he can speak, and slowly, carefully slides to his knees. Not a position he would take for anyone else, even Mei if she ever wore the Mizukage's hat, not after a lifetime spent clawing his way up from the streets and into a place of his own power. But—gods are something different. They have to be, or they can't offer miracles, and Zabuza needs that miracle right now.“I was told that you help those seeking justice,” he says.





	the hope which has no opposite in fear

**Author's Note:**

> Title from ee cummings: "love is the voice under all silences/the hope which has no opposite in fear". Inspired by a prompt left for my by a lovely anon on my Tumblr.

“This is as far as you go, Haku,” Zabuza says at the edge of the forest.

Haku has more composure than any ten other people, but right now it’s straining. He bites his lip, eyes so worried it’s on the edge of outright fear, hands white-knuckled around the strap of his pack. “Zabuza—” he starts, but it’s clearly going to be a protest and Zabuza has made up his mind.

“If this goes south,” he interrupts, makes it blunt and flat so that Haku will _listen_ , “you need to get back to Mei and the rebellion. There's every chance I won't come back, and I don’t want you standing here until moss grows up to your ass.”

“You know how fond I am of plants,” Haku says, but he closes his eyes, mouth tight. “I don’t think I’d mind.”

“I would,” Zabuza says quietly, because Haku is better than wasting away at the edge of a god’s forest like some kind of tragic fairy tale. “Mei will need you. Give me until sunrise and then give up and assume I failed.”

Haku's eyes slowly slide open, expression grimmer and more tired than it has any right to be. “All right,” he says, equally soft, and it’s not explicitly a goodbye but it feels like one. “How will I know if you’ve succeeded?”

Zabuza casts a glance at the forest, smiles wryly. Thinks of all the stories whispered around campfires and told in the silence of battlefields when the fighting has stopped.

“Believe me,” he says, “you’ll know.”

“Zabuza—” Haku starts, and the pauses, swallows. They both know exactly how desperate this is, but neither of them has said it. Mei is losing. Mei is losing and Yagura is winning and if there's going to be any hope at all, they need a miracle. Something bloody, something devastating. Something fit for one of the old gods, wild and dangerous and untamed by time and worshipers.

“Thanks, Haku,” Zabuza says. He touches his apprentice’s cheek, lingering for just a moment as he tries to fix the face of the boy he raised in his mind, and then steps away. The edge of the forest looms sentinel-still, the dark trees leaning down to trail boughs across the mossy floor, and what bits of moonlight make it through the canopy are like spears of white brilliance against the gloom. It’s a Hunter’s Moon, low and brilliant and vast across the sky, and Zabuza didn’t intend for the timing to work out as it did, but he’s willing to take it as an omen. Whether a fortunate one or not, there's no saying.

“Thank you, Zabuza,” Haku whispers, and Zabuza doesn’t have to look back to know he’s standing there with his arms wrapped around himself, eyes on Zabuza as the trees swallow him. He lifts a hand, because if he looks back he might waver and he won't allow that, then passes beyond the twisted, gnarled trunk of an ancient oak and loses the light of the outside world.

The forest feels like it’s breathing around him, close and alive and watchful. There's no path, just a carpet of lush green moss glittering with remnants of the rain from this morning, but Zabuza can hear the whisper of the river that cuts through the trees. If a map of this place exists, Zabuza couldn’t find it, but everything he read says the shrine is where the river curves, in a grove of chestnut trees. If Zabuza can find the river, he’ll find the shrine.

Gods aren’t hard to find, if you know where and how to look.

Taking a breath, he touches Kubikiribōchō’s hilt, just for reassurance, and starts walking, half an eye on his surroundings and the rest of his attention on the rushing waters ahead. The forest leans in over him like a living thing, and he’d call it wary but there's no caution in it, just hunger. If he wasn’t driven by something else, not all the money in the world could tempt Zabuza to set foot in here, but he supposes that’s the point; people who go looking for justice and revenge are always driven by something, and the forest is here to test their resolve. A protection against anyone wasting the god’s time, he assumes, not that he can think of anyone who would be that stupid. The god here is a vicious one, by all accounts.

It feels like an eternity before the wood opens up, dark, twisted trees and trailing vines giving way to more scattered stands of trees, a lighter canopy above. The moss underfoot becomes leaflitter and patchy grass, distinct in the moonlight, and the murmur of the river comes clear. It’s wide and lazy, bending past the groves as it keeps to its sandy banks, gently sloped. Kind, almost, after the watchful gloom of the forest, but Zabuza eyes the water warily despite how still it looks. He’s seen rivers like that before; the surface is calm and inviting, but underneath the current is wild and deadly, and the riverbed is lined with sharp rocks that can slice a swimmer to pieces. He keeps well away from the shore, sticking to the moonlight under the trees, and heads upstream. The groves aren’t anywhere close to orderly, but they still change as he passes through them, bitter orange to maple to yew, and then—

Chestnut trees. Tall and twisted, branches tangled as they grow up at all angles, but the grove is still light and open, the long leaves gilded silver. There's a faint breeze, just enough to rustle the treetops, and Zabuza pauses, lifts his face to it. Charms hang from the branches, written in a beautiful hand, and they form a path that leads towards the point where the river bends. The shrine itself is a tiny hokora, nothing that Zabuza would expected to house a god like this one, but despite the size of it there's a sense of power in the air, heavy like the feel of lightning before a summer thunderstorm. Zabuza swallows, eyeing the path, but—

But he’s here for a reason, and there's nothing in him that can fail at his task. Mei doesn’t know he’s here, likely thinks he abandoned the rebellion altogether, but Zabuza didn’t. He _can't_. He swore himself to her, to the cause, and they're on the brink of losing. Zabuza has spilled so much blood for this, to create a path to a new Kiri, and if he stops now it’s all for nothing.

Zabuza can endure everything except having lived his life for no purpose.

He takes a breath, reaches up to touch the hilt of his sword. Steps forward, under the first of the charms, and feels the shimmering rush of power like silver across his skin. It prickles, sharp and swift, and he catches his breath on a gasp, wavers. Keeps walking, forcing himself on even when every instinct says to turn back, and fixes his gaze on the shrine as he breaks through the last line of trees.

There's a silver wolf curled inside of it, watching him with glowing eyes.

 _Shit_ , Zabuza thinks, because he wasn’t expecting that. Wasn’t expecting a physical presence to be waiting for him, expectant and cold as it watches him take two more steps and then stop. But there's no way that’s a normal wolf; it’s easily twice the size, as large as two men, with fur that shines like the Hunter’s Moon and ripples like its streaked with lightning. And the grey eyes—

Not an animal. Not human, either, Zabuza thinks, and a shiver of bone-deep, instinctive terror slides through him. Nothing rational, or reasonable, but _old_. Some small piece of his soul that remembers when gods didn’t sleep in neat shrines, announcing themselves with charms and stone lanterns. Something that remembers being hunted in ancient forests and killed for sport by beings that took fear and terror as their due.

He steels himself, breathes out. Remembers he can move, that he can speak, and slowly, carefully slides to his knees. Not a position he would take for anyone else, even Mei if she ever wore the Mizukage's hat, not after a lifetime spent clawing his way up from the streets and into a place of his own power. But—gods are something different. They have to be, or they can't offer miracles, and Zabuza needs that miracle right now.

“I was told that you help those seeking justice,” he says, and if his throat is dry, it’s easy enough to ignore.

Languid, lazy, the wolf rises. Sits up in the opening of the shrine, somehow large enough to contain it even when Zabuza would have sworn it was too small, and cocks its head. Doesn’t answer, but waits there instead of tearing out Zabuza’s throat for the presumption, and Zabuza takes that as permission to keep talking.

“I'm here to offer myself to you,” he says, and thinks of Haku's face in the moonlight, young and scared, of Mei's in the dawn, aged and drawn. Closes his eyes, pushing the images aside; they're important, always, but he can't think about them right now. “For—as anything you want. Blood, or a soul, or chakra—fuck, whatever you want from me, I’ll give it to you. Just—help Mei. Help Kiri.”

There's a long, endless pause, filled with the sound of the river and the rustle of the chestnut leaves. Then the wolf stands, steps out of the shrine, and it’s like the whole world goes still around it. Like the moonlight gets sharper, the air crisper. Not the bite of winter, but the edge of anticipation before a battle, the grim reality of a fight and the heat of adrenaline rising condensed into a moment and then stretched out between them, Zabuza kneeling and the wolf stepping down to stand on the silvered grass.

“Why should I help you when someone has already called for justice against you?” the god asks, lazily amused.

Mei. Zabuza winces, but doesn’t raise his head. “She has every right,” he says. “But I'm trying to help her. That’s all I want. If you will, I—” He doesn’t have much to offer. He never has. That’s the problem with growing up on the streets and then spending the rest of his time running missions and training.

“Hmm.” It’s a slow, indolent hum, light in the heavy air. Zabuza doesn’t open his eyes, but he can hear steps circling him steadily. “Justice isn't the only reason you're here.”

A two-faced god, a woman on the road told Zabuza when she learned of his destination. Justice and vengeance. Blood on both sides, but two purposes, often at odds. He swallows, thinks of the answer he prepared. “In this case, vengeance is justice.”

“Either way, you’re willing to sell yourself for it.” The god sounds like it doesn’t care either way, and Zabuza supposes that it wouldn’t. This is its territory regardless of which side is right and just. “Didn’t anyone teach you not to make open-ended bargains?”

“Yeah,” Zabuza gets out through gritted teeth. “They did. So what do you think that says about how far I'm willing to go?”

A soft huff, like a laugh. “Really?” the god drawls, almost mocking. “What if I asked you to pick up your sword, go find that pretty boy waiting outside the wood? What if I wanted his blood?”

Zabuza jerks, head coming up, entire body going tight. Haku. The god can't mean anyone else, but—

“Why ask for his blood when you could have mine?” he asks, can't quite manage to keep the edge of a snarl out of the words. “I have more. I've killed more people. There's—”

“Pure blood is its own reward.” The god stares right into his eyes, unwavering, and Zabuza sinks back down, a shaky breath escaping him. He curls his hands into fists, resting on his thighs, and can't even imagine what choice he’ll make if the god really asks for Haku's blood.

Then, suddenly, the god chuckles. Steps away, looking towards the river for a moment, and then gives Zabuza a wolf-grin. “I don’t want the boy. Too soft. He hasn’t lived enough to be interesting yet.” And then, before the shaky breath of relief can even fully make it past Zabuza’s lips, the god turns to him again, steps close, and those grey eyes burn in the moonlight.

“No,” he says, sly and cunning and full of humor. “I don’t know what kind of god you think I am, if you’d believe that of me. So harsh, you mortals.”

Zabuza wonders how much trouble he’ll be in if he punches a god in the face. A lot, probably. It won't mean anything good for his request, either, but _fuck_ , he’s never been so tempted by anything in his _life_ before. Gritting his teeth, he digs his fingernails into his palms and gets out, “Then what _do_ you want?”

The moonlight seems to shimmer, and between one second and the next the god changes. A man leans over Zabuza, hair as silver as the wolf’s fur falling around his face, grey eyes just as full of perfect wildness as in his other shape. “Give me your sword,” he says, and there's a light of humor in his face, as clean-edged as a blade.

Despite himself, Zabuza’s heart lurches in his chest. Kubikiribōchō is the greatest thing he ever earned, the only thing in his life that he cherished before he found Haku. It’s a sword, but it’s a mark of how far he’s brought himself, all the pain and suffering since Zabuza was born made worthwhile. He swallows hard, but—he knew when he entered the forest that this would likely be one of the prices. Kiri's Seven Swords are forged from divine metal, given shape by godly hands. They’re relics of older powers, older bargains. The gods like to keep the things they make close, and regaining one of the Swords—

Zabuza never expected to leave this shrine alive, and knowing he’d lose Kubikiribōchō almost made that expectation sit more easily in his chest.

He closes his eyes, bows his head. Lifts his hands to his chest, unbuckling the strap, and pulls the sword over his head. Carefully, with more reverence than he’s ever shown any god, he lays the blade between them, dark and glowing beneath the Hunter’s Moon.

“Done,” he says, and hopes the effort of speaking that one word doesn’t show in his voice.

“Good.” The god sounds pleased, at least. He leans down, bare and pale and lightning-lean, and curls his hand around Zabuza’s throat. His touch is electricity, sparking across Zabuza’s skin, and Zabuza gasps before he can help it, jerks, but the god’s grip doesn’t even shift. He just hums, considering, and then says, “Your loyalties are already strong, though. I don’t know if you can be of any use to me like that.”

It sounds teasing, undercut with laughter, but Zabuza can't afford to think it’s a joke. “I’ll swear whatever oaths you fucking want,” he snaps, remembers himself. Grits his teeth again, dragging his temper under control, and demands, “What more do you want from me?”

A hand catches his, pulls it up. The god presses his lips to the underside of Zabuza’s forearm, and if the press of his hand is lightning, the touch of his mouth is a wildfire. Zabuza chokes on a guttural groan, wants to jerk free and press into the touch at the same time. He’s dizzy with the feeling, with the sight of bare skin in the moonlight, pale and scarred and perfect. A warrior god, not some divine prince lounging in a shrine all day, and he’s beautiful, bewitching. Zabuza isn't allowed to want him, but—

“What will you give me?” the god asks, sly, smirking. Wicked eyes above full lips, a beauty mark beneath his lip, that silver hair wild and loose.

Zabuza still wants to punch him, but he wants to kiss the smirk off his face just as much. “Anything,” he says, brutally honest with himself just as much as the god. “Anything you want.”

The god smiles, eyes crinkling. Leans forward, catching Zabuza’s face in his hands, and breathes against his lips, “I want everything.”

Zabuza shivers, lungs hitching. Doesn’t try to close his eyes, with the god’s face so close, breath like a thunderstorm hot against his lips. “We have a deal?” he asks, desperate, because if he doesn’t he’s going to forget why he’s here, lose himself in the face of this wolf-god.

With a chuckle, the god slides down to his knees, cups Zabuza’s face in his hands. “We have a deal—my help for your rebellion, and I get you in return. Seal it with a kiss?” he asks coyly, and Zabuza leans into him without hesitation, kisses him. Like riding a storm as it falls to earth, and he gasps, gets his hands on bare skin. Feels the god laugh against his mouth, warm and bloody, and his next kiss is iron and copper and sharp teeth meant to tear.

“Call me Kakashi,” he murmurs against Zabuza’s skin. “I think if you belong to me you can use my name.”

That, more than anything, eases the fear, slides the tension from Zabuza’s muscles. He lets Kakashi pull him in, drag him down against the god as he sprawls languidly back against a chestnut tree. Kakashi hums into the next kiss, strokes his fingers through Zabuza’s hair. He plucks pointedly at Zabuza’s shirt, and Zabuza strips it off without pause, drops it to the side, and it earns him a smile, amused and pleased.

“So cute,” Kakashi tells him, laying a hand over Zabuza’s heart, and laughs when Zabuza growls at him in irritation. The Hunter’s Moon plays across his skin, lingers bright as knives in his gaze as he leans in, and his hand is _hot_ , burns against Zabuza’s skin like a brand. He cries out, not entirely from pain, and Kakashi steals the sound right from his lips. Breathes out, lightning and blades and blood on the ground, a war in his eyes, and sears his mark into Zabuza’s skin.

 _Mine_ , Zabuza hears, not a word in any way he knows of them. A concept, a truth, sent spinning out into the universe, born of their deal and the acceptance of what was offered.

Then Kakashi kisses him again, and he lets himself be distracted.

 

 

Night is falling, and Mei is tired. She’s been tired for weeks now, and the disappearance of the man who might as well have been her general isn't helping.

It’s a disappearance, though, not a desertion. Haku is seated next to her, head bowed, mouth tight, eyes dry. She hadn’t wanted to believe him when he brought word, hadn’t wanted to accept that Zabuza would have risked so much for nothing at all in return, but—

Desperation effects them all in strange ways, she supposes.

Running a hand through her hair, she tries to force her eyes to focus on the maps, the charts, the supply lists. They’ve managed to barricade themselves into a pass between two mountains, with the ocean at their back and Yagura’s forces spread through the forest beyond the cliffs. There's no leaving unless they want to risk Kiri's warships or Yagura’s shinobi, no escape when they have so many wounded, and there's a storm sweeping through the sky, swift-moving and dark. It will hit them soon, and they don’t have the equipment to build shelters. Too many Doton jutsus will bring the cliffs down on them, and even the best Suiton users can only keep the rain off them for so long, especially when they're needed for fighting as well.

If Zabuza were here, he might see a solution that Mei can't. He was always good like that. Ao is straight-laced and stiff, set in his ways, but Zabuza was a street rat and a survivor; he sees the escapes Mei misses, just because she’s not so practiced looking for them.

“Anything?” she asks Ameyuri as the woman emerges from the boulders strewn across the pass.

Ameyuri grins, all teeth and the ferocious fury of a warrior with her back to the wall. “No change, if that’s something,” she says, all bloody humor, and pulls herself up to sit on the rock Mei is using as a table. “They're going to wait us out.”

“At least until Yagura gets impatient,” Mei says grimly, looking over at the edge of forest visible from here. The land falls away as the cliffs end, a steep hill giving them the higher ground, but Yagura has numbers, resources. He can afford to sit there. Mei's forces can't. not for long.

“Better to die standing, right?” Ameyuri asks cheekily, then jerks her head away, coughing hard into the crook of her arm. It sounds wet, raw, and Mei closes her eyes in something like grief. Another Swordsman gone, and she already lost Mangetsu and Zabuza. She doesn’t want to lose Ameyuri too, even if it’s been so long in coming that the medics whisper in amazement at the fact that Ameyuri is still standing.

“Don’t make that face, Mizukage-sama,” Ameyuri says, not even looking at Mei. She wipes her mouth, as if that will hide the smell of blood on the air, and then glances up and grins. Her sharp teeth are stained with red. “Just a little—”

A roll of thunder splits the air, and Ameyuri breaks off with a sharp sound, bolting to her feet. Kiba falls into her hands in an instant, the twin swords already sparking, and Mei spins to follow her gaze. The forest, she thinks, panic condensing and hardening into resolve. Yagura must be—

But it’s not Yagura.

There are wolves in the trees, pale and shining like lightning, eyes glowing like thunderheads backlit by the moon. They surge through the shadows and screams follow them, cries and shouts and death, and Yagura’s power surges, but it’s panicked and straining at the edges of his control, the Sanbi thrashing right beneath the surface. Thunder crashes, lightning flares, and for an instant the whole valley is illuminated with hard-edged light. Mei can see the Kiri forces in panicked retreat, running from the silver wolves as if they’re demons.

Another roll of thunder makes the earth tremble, and half a heartbeat later lightning flashes again. And this time, when the light fades, there's a man left behind, standing on the road inside their defenses.

He’s dressed like a shinobi, right down to the flak jacket, but he isn't wearing a hitai-ate, and his uniform is decades out of date. He’s smiling, clear even through the half-mask pulled up over his nose. His silver hair is the same shade as the wolves’ fur, and there's a body in his arms.

“Zabuza!” Haku cries, on his feet and lunging, and Mei only just manages to catch him in time, dragging him back to her side as she takes a step back. Something prickles across the back of her neck, unsettled and close to terror even with no outward sign of danger, and she wraps her arm around Haku's shoulders and doesn’t let him run to his teacher.

Zabuza is unconscious, or maybe just asleep. Wrapped in white cloth that shines faintly in a way no cloth should, skin bare underneath. There are marks on him, bruises that make Mei swallow, and—

A handprint, splayed over his heart. Bright, shining silver against Zabuza’s skin, stark and clear. A possessive mark, and not one anything mortal would leave on him.

With a chuckle, the silver-haired man crouches down, gently laying Zabuza on the ground. “I think he wore himself out trying to keep up with me,” he says cheerfully, and his fingers linger against Zabuza’s skin as he arranges his limbs for comfort. Then, as if it’s nothing at all for him to be carrying it, he stands and pulls Kubikiribōchō off his back, letting the harness drop beside Zabuza’s still form.

“Take care of him for me,” he tells Mei, meeting her eyes, and she freezes in front of that gaze, suddenly, absolutely sure that the man in front of her isn't a man at all. “I’ll be coming back for him.”

And then he’s gone, vanished in a swirl of chestnut leaves. A howl rises, long and low and eerie, making every inch of Mei's skin crawl, and the wolves in the valley turn. They flow into the trees, headed for the source of the cry, and Mei knows without a doubt what this is.

“Idiot,” she hisses, even as she lets go of Haku, falls to her knees at Zabuza’s side. He’s breathing steadily, and she closes her eyes in relief, touches his hair.

“Zabuza?” Haku demands, gripping his shoulder, but Mei catches his hand before it can come too close to the mark over Zabuza’s heart.

“Let him be,” she orders. Licks her dry lips, and closes her eyes as power surges in the valley. Not chakra. Chakra is to this what a candleflame is to a wildfire. “Just—give him a little space, Haku.”

Beneath their touch, Zabuza stirs. Turns his head, opens his eyes, and they’re dazed. Chakra-high, Mei would say, but she knows it’s something even fiercer. There’s no word for getting drowned in a god’s power and coming out sane on the other side, though. Except maybe a miracle.

“Kakashi,” Zabuza says, and pushes up on one elbow like he’s going to rise.

Mei pushes him flat without hesitation. “ _Stay_ ,” she orders, and when he gives her a pissy look she smacks him in the head. “No. There's a god down there slaughtering Yagura’s forces, and he told us to take care of you. You're staying.”

“Good to see you too, harpy,” Zabuza huffs, but he lets her pin him there, even though he could move if he wanted to.

Mei laughs, and if it’s a little rough she thinks she can be forgiven. “You _ass_ ,” she says. “How in the world did you—?”

Ameyuri shouts, startled, and Mei jerks around. Wolves in the camp, but these ones are ghosts, pure power without physical form. They dart in between the bedrolls of the wounded, leaving shimmering shrouds behind them. One crashes straight into Ameyuri, and she cries out, staggers. Presses a hand to her chest, dark eyes wide, and her next breath comes without any rasp at all, clearer than Mei has heard it in _years_.

“I found us a miracle,” Zabuza says, and this time when he pushes up on his elbows Mei is too stunned to stop him.

“You did,” she says, and when Ameyuri staggers over to her Mei catches her hands and pulls her down, wraps her arms around Ameyuri and hopes she never, ever has to let go. Laughs, breathless with relief, and repeats, “You _did_!”

Zabuza huffs, falls back into the dirt as Haku curls over him. Wraps an arm around the boy’s shoulders, closes his eyes and tips his head back, breathing evening out.

Mei lets him drift. Anyone who can bring the vengeance of a god down on their enemies has earned their rest, she thinks, stroking her fingers through Ameyuri’s crimson hair. Ameyuri laughs against her skin, and above them the thunder rolls, long and fierce.

The wolves howl, and Mei closes her eyes, feeling power prickle across her skin.


End file.
